Homemade exfoliating facial scrub

Not me

I have very sensitive skin. It has led me to follow a very simple daily skincare routine with just two products: light cleanser followed by moisturiser each morning. I rarely wear make up (maybe once a year if I need to be on stage or look semi-presentable), drink heaps of water, stay out of the sun and exfoliate once a week.

I came across a recipe for a homemade exfoliating facial scrub made from pantry ingredients and have been using it for years. I made another batch today. It will last me around a year if I use about a teaspoonful each week. You can scent it with a few drops of vanilla essence or a sprinkle of cinnamon if you want, but I don't usually bother. It's cheaper and gentler than any exfoliating product I've ever bought and really couldn't be easier to make and use.

Homemade exfoliating facial scrub

Ingredients

• 65 grams brown sugar
• 65 grams caster sugar
• 40 grams coconut oil

Method

1. Smoosh it all together in a bowl.
2. Transfer to a jar.

To use

1. Gently apply one teaspoonful to face and neck.
2. Rinse off with warm water.

Homemade exfoliating facial scrub

Toll house biscuits

Good Bitches Baking is back in action for 2018, spreading home baked sweetness in the community. My first bake for this year is a version of Allyson Gofton's toll house biscuits. I substituted dried fruit for some of the chocolate chips and mixed it with white chocolate instead. Almost any combination would work so see what's in your pantry and have fun experimenting.

Toll house biscuits

Ingredients

• 175 g butter, softened
• 165 g brown sugar
• 165 g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 315 g flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 cup dried mixed fruit (apricots, cranberries, sultanas), finely chopped
• 1 cup chocolate chips (white, milk, dark)

Method

1. Line two baking trays with baking paper and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars together until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Sift the flour and baking powder evenly over the creamed mixture. Sprinkle over the dried fruit and chocolate chips. Fold together.
4. Roll the mixture into 40 gram balls and place on the baking trays. Leave enough room between each ball for the cookies to spread when cooking. Lightly press down with a fork.
5. Refrigerate the baking trays and cooking dough for at least 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 180°C. Bake for 20 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly brown and firm to touch. 
7. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 30 biscuits.

Toll house biscuits

Chocolate dipped macaroons

I'm a Good Bitch Baker this weekend and felt like trying something different. Thumbing through a new cookbook, I came across a recipe for chocolate dipped macaroons. Remember macaroons? They were all we knew before macarons came along. What's the difference? This explanation is harsh but accurate.

These macaroons are actually light and crispy. They're pretty much meringues with desiccated coconut rolled through and dipped in chocolate.

For a smooth finish, roll the mixture into balls and pat down the rough edges. For a chunky coconut rough-type finish, drop spoonfuls of mixture onto the tray.

Chocolate dipped macaroons

Ingredients

• 2 egg whites
• 180 g caster sugar
• 4 t cornflour (cornstarch)
• 180 g desiccated coconut
• 130 g dark chocolate for dipping

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line two trays with baking paper.
2. Whisk egg whites in a clean, dry mixing bowl until firm peaks form.
3. Gradually add the sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is thick and glossy.
4. Add the cornflour and mix until the ingredients are just combined.
5. Add the coconut to the egg white mixture. Using a slotted metal spoon, mix until just combined.
6. Roll heaped teaspoons of the mixture into balls and drop onto the prepared trays.
7. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the macaroons are lightly golden. Remove from oven and leave to cool on the trays. 
8. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl and dip the top half of each macaroon into it. Leave to set on a drip tray.

Makes 36 macaroons.

Chocolate dipped macaroons

Pineapple lump cupcakes

Pineapple lumps are some of my favourite lollies. The chocolate pineapple combination makes it scarily easy to polish off a pack before you know it. Remember this ad? It's not just me who thinks they are good.



With pineapple lumps in the pantry and baking to do today, I thought about how I could combine these two things and modified a recipe for pineapple and coconut cupcakes. The result was 24 delicious pineapple cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting and, of course, crowned with a heavenly pineapple lump.

Pineapple lump cupcakes

Ingredients

• 240 g plain flour
• 280 g sugar
• 3 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 80 g butter, softened
• 240 ml milk
• 1 t vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 300 g crushed pineapple, drained (1 x 440 g tin)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C.
2. Line two 12-hole muffin tins with cupcake papers.
3. Using the paddle attachment of your mixer, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter on slow speed until reaching a sandy consistency and everything is combined.
4. Mix the milk and vanilla together in a measuring cup. Pour into the flour mixture on medium speed until well combined.
5. Add eggs one at a time and mix well, scraping down the side of the bowl with a spatula in between additions.
6. Fold in the crushed pineapple with a spatula. The mixture will be wet and sloppy.
7. Fill the cupcake cases until two-thirds full. Using an ice cream scoops helps spread the mixture evenly.
8. Bake for 25 minutes or until the cupcakes bounce back when touched and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tray for five minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate buttercream

Ingredients

• 250 g unsalted butter, softened
• 250 g icing sugar, sifted
• 30 ml tepid water
• 20 g cocoa, sifted to remove lumps

Method

1. Beat the butter and sugar on high speed using the paddle attachment until smooth and creamy.
2. Add water and mix to combine.
3. Add cocoa and mix until smooth.

Pipe or frost the cupcakes when cool, then top with a pineapple lump.

Pineapple lump cupcakes

Piña colada cupcakes

You can vary this recipe to make piña colada cupcakes.

• Replace milk with coconut milk.
• Replace vanilla essence with rum.
• Frost with vanilla buttercream and sprinkle with desiccated coconut to decorate.

Neapolitan cake

There's so much more to Neapolitan than the ice cream we grew up with as kids. Back in the day, vanilla and chocolate were the predominant flavour options. We hadn't heard of cookies and cream, goodie goodie gum drops or salted caramel yet. Neapolitan added a touch of exoticism, even if we didn't really like it. Hokey pokey was another whole level of excitement for kiwi kids.

Birthday time calls for a special birthday cake. I wanted to use my Fresh As freeze dried strawberry powder to bake with and Neapolitan cake came to mind. After unsuccessfully searching for Neapolitan cake recipes, I decided to double and modify the standard Edmonds Cookery Book butter cake recipe. It's incredibly versatile and produced three layers for turned out to be a very large cake once assembled and decorated.

Neapolitan cake

Ingredients

• 300 g butter, softened
• 3 t vanilla essence
• 330 g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 420 g flour
• 2 T baking powder
• 375 ml milk
• 1 t freeze dried strawberry powder
• pink food colouring
• 2 T cocoa

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and line three 20 cm sandwich cake pans.
2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence together until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down sides of the bowl and beating well after each addition.
4. Sift flour and baking powder together. Fold into creamed mixture.
5. Add milk gradually to give a soft dropping consistency.
6. Divide mixture into three equal portions (about ~568 grams each) as follows.
   Vanilla cake: Pour one third of the mixture into a prepared pan.
   Strawberry cake: Pour one third of the mixture into a separate bowl. Add freeze dried powder and enough pink food colouring to achieve your desired colour. Pour into second prepared pan.
   Chocolate cake: Add cocoa to remaining mixture and combine thoroughly. Pour into third prepared pan.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cakes are cooked when a skewer comes out clean and cake shrinks a little from the edges. Cool for 10 minutes in pans, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Assembly
Assemble cake layers with chocolate on the bottom, vanilla in the middle and strawberry on top. Spread buttercream in between each layer before icing and decorating the whole cake.

Decorating
Decorate any way you choose. I made 700 g of strawberry buttercream by adding one tablespoon of freeze dried powder and food colouring to a standard buttercream recipe, then decorated the cake with fondant ruffles in the same order as the cake's layers. The finishing touch was fondant roses using my new easiest rose ever cutter.

Neapolitan cake with fondant ruffles

Strawberry, vanilla and chocolate layers

Cruise cocktail class

Never have I ever seen as many cocktail menus and signs as during the past two weeks on the Pacific Pearl. I'm not complaining; cocktails and their limitless flavour combinations fascinate me. Although I rarely drink alcohol, you'll almost always find me perusing cocktail menu ingredients.

We signed up for a cocktail making class while at sea one afternoon. We learned how to measure, muddle, squeeze, shake and pour four cocktails, then spent a blissful hour or so consuming our creations. Our workstations were beautifully set up like this. Of course, it wasn't so tidy once we'd finished, but that's ok when the result is yummy cocktails to enjoy.

Here are the cocktails we made and the recipes so you can try making them at home. 1 ounce (oz) is roughly 30 ml, or the bigger part of a cocktail jigger (measuring cup).

Fresh grapefruit cosmopolitan

Any Sex and the City fan will love this variation on the cosmopolitan.

• 1 oz (30 ml) grapefruit vodka
• 1 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz cranberry juice
• fresh grape fruit slice
• squeeze of lime
• 15 ml sugar syrup

Muddle grapefruit and all of the ingredients. Half-fill the shaker with ice. Shake until cold and strain into a chilled glass.

Grapefruit cosmopolitan

Pimm's cup

This one is usually made in tall pitchers and served on English summer afternoons. These Pimm's cups are individual servings and can be made with any fruit combination.

• 2 oz Pimm's
• fresh mint leaves
• grapes
• oranges
• strawberries
• lemonade

Add all the ingredients into a glass. Make sure you bruise the mint to bring out the full flavour. Top up with lemonade and stir.

Pimm's cup

Caprioska

This variation on a Portuguese/Brazilian cocktail features my favourite citrus flavour: lime.

• 3 lime wedges
• 2 oz citrus vodka
• ½ oz sugar syrup 

Muddle limes with vodka and sugar. Fill to top with crushed ice.

Caprioska

Coffee and cream

This dessert cocktail has plenty of potential to experiment with different flavoured sauces (such as caramel).

• 1 oz coffee and vanilla infused vodka
• 1 oz Patron XO Café (coffee liqueur)
• ½ oz Baileys
• 1 ½ oz cream 

Add all the ingredients into a shaker. Half fill with ice and shake until cold. Use chocolate syrup to make fancy patterns on the side of a chilled glass and strain cocktail mixture into it.

Coffee and cream cocktail

Infusing vodka
You can infuse your own vodka or buy it ready-flavoured. Here's how to make your own. Remember that the higher quality alcohol and ingredients you use for your infusions, the greater the final product will be.

Coffee and vanilla vodka

• 10 vanilla pods
• 100 coffee beans
• 1 litre of vodka

Cut vanilla pods length ways and add them with coffee beans to a bottle of vodka. Leave to infuse for three days or until vodka changes colour.

Citrus vodka

• 2 limes, peeled
• 6 lemons, peeled
• 2 oranges, peeled

Add all the peels to a bottle of vodka. Leave to infuse for three days or until vodka changes colour.

Potato bread

As autumn sets in, the season for comfort food has begun. Soups, stews and slow cooked meals and freshly baked bread. It's even better when you can combine a couple of these meals.

This breadmaker recipe for potato bread is super easy and a great way to use up left over mashed potatoes. The original recipe calls for mashed kumara but I prefer potatoes so always make sure I mash extra potatoes on slow cooker or casserole nights. I sometimes substitute 100 g of the high grade flour for wholemeal flour for a slightly more dense loaf.

Just add all the ingredients in the order you would normally put them into your breadmaker, then set it onto the basic bake setting (4 hours) for an extra large loaf and press start. It's also a good timed bread if you want to bake it overnight and wake up to the smell of fresh potato bread.

Potato bread

Ingredients

• 3 t Surebake yeast
• 600 g high grade flour
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 2 T milk powder
• 30 g butter
• 2/3 cup mashed potatoes
• 1 T honey
• 380 ml water

Breadmaker settings
for Panasonic breadmakers

• Basic bread
• Size: XL
• Medium colour crust

Potato bread

Brunch bagels

Happy new year! I've been meaning to bake bagels at home since my bread making class a couple of months ago and the new year seemed like a good time to get to it. Homemade bagels filled with salmon and cream cheese or Christmas ham are nothing like the hard store bought bagels I'm used to. They're also easy to make by hand at home.

This recipe is a mash up of two different bagel recipes. It was an experiment that seemed to work and makes eight bagels. Make the dough in advance and leave it in the fridge overnight to proof. This cuts down the amount of time you need to spend working on it the next morning and means you can actually have fresh bagels ready in time for a lazy brunch instead of lunch!

Brunch bagels

Ingredients

• 2 t active dried yeast
• 1 t sugar
• 1 T honey
• 375 ml warm water
• 500 g high grade flour
• 2 t salt
• cornmeal or polenta to dust

Method

1. Put the yeast, sugar, honey and warm water in a bowl and stir until dissolved. Leave in a warm place for 10 minutes to activate the yeast. Bubbles should appear on the surface and the mixture should be frothy.
2. Put half the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add salt and the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden paddle, adding the rest of the flour until the dough is stiff.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead for 10-12 minutes until smooth and stiff. Add more flour if the dough is too soft or sticky.
4. Divide the dough into eight portions and roll them into smooth balls. (I weigh my portions so they cook evenly.) Cover with plastic wrap or a clean tea towel and leave to rest for 5 minutes.
5. Line a baking tray with baking paper and dust with polenta or cornmeal. Set aside.
6. Roll each ball into a long rope approximately 28 cm long. Dampen the ends slightly but do not taper them. Wrap the dough rope around the base of your fingers to form a circle and seal the seam by overlapping the dough ends by about 4 cm. It should be the same thickness all around with a hole in the middle. Place on the prepared baking tray. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean tea towel and refrigerate overnight (12 hours).
7. Remove bagels from the fridge 20 minutes before cooking and allow to reach room temperature. Preheat oven to 210°C.
8. Bring a medium sized pot of salted water to the boil. Using a slotted spoon to pick up and turn the bagels, poach each bagel for 1 minute then turn over and poach for another 30 seconds. (I use the timer on my phone to make sure I don't overcook them.) Drain and place on two lined baking trays.
9. Brush boiled bagels with egg wash all over and add toppings of your choice. I used sesame seeds to top these.
10. Bake bagels for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Brunch bagels

Chocolate Christmas puddings

At this time of year, our team celebrates Christmas by making and giving small homemade gifts to each other. I made eight mini chocolate Christmas puddings for team members as my homemade gift this week. Now, I'm not a fan of Christmas cake, although I can be partial to a bit of Christmas pudding. The best thing about this recipe, though, is the puddings are deliciously overloaded with chocolate. Mmmm.

The instructions below are for assembling the puddings in several stages. (I've bolded the key steps.) You'll need some Jaffas for the holly berry and green fondant to make the leaves, or substitute whatever you have available. You may find these recipes helpful:

• Decadent chocolate cake
• White modelling chocolate

Some tips and hints:

• You can bake the chocolate cakes in advance and freeze until you need them. Triple wrap in plastic wrap before freezing or double wrap and freeze in a zip lock bag. Defrost in the fridge.
• If the cakes get stuck in the Texas muffin pan, let them cool completely and refrigerate until firm then try again.
• Make the white modelling chocolate a day or two in advance so it will be pliant enough to roll. I'm told a pasta maker is handy for rolling the chocolate thinly. 
• Keep cool (but not refrigerated) once assembled to prevent the various bits of chocolate from melting.
• Wrap individually in cellophane bags or present as individual desserts on a side plate. Most will be big and rich enough for two people to share.

Chocolate Christmas puddings

1. Make one quantity of the decadent chocolate cake recipe. Instead of baking in a cake tin, grease and line two 6-hole Texas muffin pans (12 large muffins). Pour ~100 ml of mixture into each hole. Don't overfill the muffin pans; you want the tops to be flat so you can turn them upside down to become the bottom of the pudding. Cook on one oven shelf for approximately 1 hour 15 mins.
2. Remove pans from oven and loosen the sides of the cakes with a blunt knife while still warm. Leave to cool in pans.
3. Cover top and sides with chocolate buttercream. (Any recipe that makes ~500 g of buttercream will do.) The widest part of the cake will be the bottom of the pudding.
4. Roll chocolate fondant thinly and cover top and sides of puddings. Make sure the fondant is smooth along the bottom seam, but you don't need to cover the bottom.
5. Roll enough modelling chocolate to thinly cover about two-thirds of the pudding. Shape to look like drizzled custard and drape over the fondant.
6. Use an ivy/holly plunger cutters to cut three small green fondant leaves for each pudding. Add a jaffa on top to create a small bunch of holly.

Chocolate Christmas pudding

Christmassy cranberry and white chocolate shortbread

This month's Good Bitches Baking involves a special bake off. A whole bunch of good bitches are pitching in to help with a special Christmas bake-off partnership with Kiwibank. We were given two recipes to choose from and special instructions for delivering extra batches of goodness. Check out the #bakingitbetter hashtag to see what everyone's been up to.

I chose to make Christmassy shortbread as I already had the ingredients on hand and knew I could bake a batch with my limited time available after being out of town for the weekend. This is not my recipe but it's been baked by so many local bakers this week that I hope it's ok to share further. I've converted it into grams for those bakers (like me) who prefer to weigh their measurements. I'm also sharing some biscuit baking tips, mostly learned the hard way so you don't have to.

My tips:

• Form two shorter logs to wrap in plastic and freeze. It's much easier to manage.
• Freeze the dough logs until solid, otherwise they'll crumble when you cut them. This is good advice; trust me on this one.
• Use a sharp bread knife to cut the logs into rounds before baking.
• Make sure your baking trays are cold when you put the dough on them to cook. This stops the biscuits spreading too much and, along with cold dough, helps them keep their shape.

Christmassy cranberry and white chocolate shortbread

Ingredients

• 225 g butter, very soft
• 180 g (1 cup) icing sugar
• 280 g (2 cups) flour
• 135 g (2/3 cup) white chocolate, roughly chopped
• 80 g (1/2 cup) dried cranberries, chopped

Method

1. Beat butter and sugar with a wooden paddle until smooth. (This will take a couple of minutes.)
2. Gradually add flour and mix until you can't see any dry flour.
3. Stir in white chocolate and cranberries.
4. Form into log shapes, about 4 cm in diameter. Wrap in plastic then put in freezer until frozen solid.
5. Preheat oven to 160°C. Spray a cookie sheet or line two baking trays with baking paper.
6. Cut frozen logs into rounds, about .5 cm thick. Place biscuits on cookie sheet, at least 2 cm apart.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes, just until the edges start to turn golden.
8. Let cool for about 5 minutes before removing from the tray and cooling on a wire rack.

Christmassy shortbread

White chocolate mud cake

Every baker needs a go to chocolate mud cake recipe. Mine is the decadent chocolate cake that has never once let me down. But what about white chocolate? Well, I think I've found it. I've made this white chocolate mud cake twice now and it's worked perfectly both times. It's super easy and made by hand - you don't even need a cake mixer.

I decorated this cake as a surprise present for my friend's 40th birthday today. There is a layer of passionfruit buttercream hiding beneath the fondant. Her delighted reaction to the inside and outside of the cake confirmed that I'm onto a winner with this recipe.

White chocolate mud cake

Ingredients

• 250 g butter, chopped
• 200 g white chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1 1/2 cups (330 g) sugar or caster sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup (140 g) self raising flour
• 1 3/4 cups (245 g) plain flour
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 t vanilla essence

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Lightly grease and line a 20 cm cake pan.
2. Melt together butter, white chocolate, sugar and milk in a medium sized saucepan over a low heat. Keep gently stirring to combine but do not let the mixture boil.
3. Sift flours together and blend in chocolate mixture with combined eggs and vanilla essence.
4. Pour into pan. Bake for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours until cooked when tested. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Frost with buttercream frosting or white chocolate ganache. Decorate with white chocolate curls or fondant.

Lemon delicious pudding

Winter is the perfect time of year to bake hearty puddings for dessert. In New Zealand, we traditionally eat Christmas pudding in summer but it makes much more sense to enjoy it as a winter warmer when then weather is cold.

This recipe for lemon delicious pudding originated from the Australian Women's Weekly Baking Recipes and Secrets from the Test Kitchen cookbook. I increased the quantities by one third to fit my 2 litre Pyrex dish. I also played around with some of the ingredients and steps. For example, I have a stand mixer but no electric hand beaters, so whisked the egg whites first and set them aside, then used the same mixing bowl for the next few steps. (As long as you don't contaminate the egg whites, you don't need to clean the bowl in between.)

The method is also different to how I'd usually make a self-saucing pudding, as my first attempt turned out extremely runny. Now, I like self-saucing puddings but the amount of liquid swimming in the bottom of the bowl was ridiculous, so I increased the amount of flour slightly and baked it in a roasting dish half-filled with boiling water. I also refrigerated the mixture in the dish for a few hours before baking and it turned out perfectly - really handy if you want to prepare the pudding in advance.

Lemon delicious pudding

Ingredients

• 105 g butter, softened
• 4 t lemon rind
• 145 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 50 g self-raising flour
• 500 ml milk
• 110 ml lemon juice
• 3 t icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 2 litre (8 cup) oven proof dish and place inside a roasting dish.
2. Whisk egg whites until firm peaks form. Set aside.
3. Using a K-paddle attachment, beat butter, lemon rind and sugar until pale. Beat in egg yolks one at a time until thick, scraping down the side of the bowl with a spatula in between each addition.
4. Change back to the whisk attachment. Whisk in the flour, milk and juice until well combined.
5. Gently fold the egg whites into the lemon mixture, in two batches. Pour mixture into the dish. Pour boiling water into the roasting dish until it comes to about halfway up the baking dish.
6. Bake pudding for 35 minutes or until golden and just firm to the touch. (It will be still quite wobbly underneath.) Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately. Serves 8.

Lemon delicious pudding

Chocolate soufflé

As a baker, I've never been brave enough to tackle making a soufflé. These finicky savoury or sweet dishes are renown for puffing up and overflowing during cooking before spectacularly caving in on themselves. It turns out my fears were unfounded - well, at least for the recipe I eventually tried. Success on the first attempt is almost unheard of for me but this one was almost brag-worthy.

I found this recipe for chocolate soufflé for two on the Crunchy Creamy Sweet dessert baking blog. I like how they are made in mini cocotte dishes but found that the recipe has a missing step, so I've revised it here and converted it into metric. I made the soufflés using Whittaker's 72% Dark Ghana chocolate and Heilala vanilla extract, which resulted in a full, rich flavour. It's an oven dessert so a good one to have pre-prepared, then put in to cook while you're serving dinner - a yummy 'sometimes treat' for winter nights.

Chocolate soufflé

Ingredients

• 1 T cocoa
• 90 g dark chocolate, chopped
• 30 g butter, melted
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• dash (1/8 t) of salt
• dash (1/8 t) of cream of tartar
• 2 T caster sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C. Grease two mini cocotte dishes or 250 ml ramekins with additional butter. Sprinkle bottom and sides with cocoa powder, tapping off excess. Set aside.
2. Melt chocolate and butter together. Whisk until smooth. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
3. Add egg yolks to cooled chocolate mixture one at a time and whisk to combine. Add vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.
4. In a clean bowl of a stand mixer, with a clean whisk, beat egg whites with salt, cream of tartar and caster sugar on medium speed until frothy. Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form. Do not over beat. Keep checking the peaks. As soon as you see the stiff peaks form, stop.
5. Add 1/3 of meringue into the chocolate mixture. Gently fold until just combined. Repeat twice until the mixture is fully combined and no streaks remain. Do not over fold.
6. Spoon the mixture into prepared cocotte dishes. At this stage, you can cover the dishes and refrigerate until ready to bake.
7. Place cocottes on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.
8. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Chocolate soufflé

Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes

I used to make cupcakes quite often for celebrations but now tend to make more cakes for birthdays. There have been several family birthdays this month, so I'm finishing off my month of baking with some decadent raspberry white chocolate cakes.

This is a modified version of a recipe from my favourite local cupcake recipe book, Divine Cupcakes by Tamara Jane, formerly of Tempt Cupcakes. I halved the quantities and still ended up with more than two dozen cupcakes! I also added a teaspoon of Fresh As freeze dried raspberry powder, popped some dried raspberries into the centre of each and added a teaspoon of raspberry powder to the vanilla frosting. Yum!

Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

• 300 g plain flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t freeze-dried raspberry powder
• 250 g butter, chopped
• 250 ml milk
• 450 g sugar or caster sugar
• 150 g white chocolate, chopped
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 1 t vanilla essence
• freeze dried raspberries

Method

1. Sift flour and baking powder together into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and set aside.
2. Put butter, milk, sugar and white chocolate into a medium saucepan and melt together over a low heat. Stir continuously with a flat-bottomed wooden stirrer until the chocolate has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Alternatively, place ingredients into a ceramic bowl and melt in the microwave on high for approximately 5 minutes, or melt gently over a bain-marie. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
3. Preheat the oven to 155°C while you wait for the chocolate mixture to cool. Line two 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake papers.
4. Pour the cooled mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk together until smooth and all lumps are dissolved. Gently stir in the eggs and vanilla essence until just combined. This is a very runny mixture.
5. Divide the mixture evenly between the cupcakes papers. They should be two-third full. Press 1-2 freeze dried raspberries into the centre of each cupcake and cover with mixture. (Beware: they will keep trying to float up to the top!)
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in the muffin trays for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Decorate by piping with vanilla or vanilla and raspberry buttercream frosting or white chocolate ganache. 

Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes

Rustic buttermilk chocolate cake

It's been a big baking weekend. Numerous batches of hot cross buns, birthday cakes and party food has seen my kitchen buzzing quite a lot recently.

My mouth watered at the sight of this rustic chocolate cake. I love baking with buttermilk and baked this cake twice this weekend, once as an 8" round cake and once as an 8" ring. Both took similar times to cook but neither rose evenly. I also discovered that its soft, crumbly finish meant that it would have been better served layered with chocolate ganache or topped with whipped cream than shaped into a birthday cake and decorated with fondant. Oh well - it still tasted amazing!

I found the layout of the original recipe quite confusing, so here is my simplified version of it with metric measurements.

Rustic buttermilk chocolate cake

Ingredients

• 1 cup hot strong coffee
• 85 g dark chocolate
• 1 3/4 c (245 g) flour
• 3/4 c (60 g) dutched cocoa
• 1 3/4 c (385 g) sugar
• 1 t salt
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 t vanilla essence
• 1/2 c canola oil
• 1 c buttermilk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line an 8" (20 cm) round tin.
2. Pour hot coffee over dark chocolate and stir to melt. Set aside.
3. Combine sifted flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda with salt and sugar.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla essence, canola oil and buttermilk to combine.
5. With your mixer on a slow speed, gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Add the coffee mixture next and mix slowly until just combined. (Do not over-mix.)
6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin. This is a very thin mixture.
7. Bake for 45-50 minutes until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Serve frosted with ganache or whipped cream.

Rustic buttermilk chocolate cake
- pre-frosting

Hot cross buns

Mmmm, hot cross buns. Baking and eating hot cross buns is one of my favourite Easter activities. I have experimented with a few different recipes for hot cross buns and keep coming back to the original one in my Panasonic breadmaker book with a few variations.

I don't usually bother with glazing the buns (we certainly don't need more sugar in our diets) but this is easily made by boiling together 3 T each of milk and caster sugar until syrupy, then brushing over the cooked buns as soon as they are removed from the oven. I also use sultanas instead of currants and leave out the citrus peel.

Hot cross buns

Ingredients

• 3 t Surebake yeast
• 450 g high grade flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 T milk powder
• 6 T (90 g) butter
• 3 T brown sugar
• 4 t spices (see below)
• 200 ml water
• 1 medium egg
• 3/4 c sultanas

Spices
Any combination of spices that adds up to 3-4 teaspoons will work. Here's my favourite combination:

• 1 t cinnamon
• 1 t allspice
• 1 t cloves
• 1/2 t mixed spice
• 1/2 t nutmeg

Crosses

• 3 T flour
• 1 T canola oil
• water to mix

Method

1. Add ingredients to the pan in the order specified by your breadmaker instructions. Set to BASIC - DOUGH RAISIN (2 hours 20 minutes). Remove dough from pan when finished and leave to rest for another 20 minutes.
2. Divide dough into 12 equal portions. [I weigh mine into ~80 g balls to ensure they rise evenly.] Roll each portion into a smooth ball and place onto an oven tray lined with baking paper. Space each ball with a 1 cm gap in between.
3. Lightly spray with canola spray and cover loosely with cling film. Leave to rise in a warm place (30-35°C) for 30 minutes or until doubled in size. [I use the proof dough setting on my oven.]
4. Preheat oven to 200°C. Prepare the crosses by mixing together flour and oil then adding water to make a thick paste. Thin with more water until smooth. Spoon mixture into a piping bag and pipe crosses over the buns. [I do this in long lines across the whole mixture, firstly horizontal then vertical.]
5. Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Brush with glaze while still hot, if desired.

Hot cross buns

Mug cakes

My mini cocotte fascination continues. I am slowly curating a collection of single-serve recipes that will fit in my cute little bakeware. A friend showed me a recipe book she had bought for mug cakes recently. They seemed the perfect size for mini cocotte desserts and the next thing I knew, I was ordering a couple of titles for myself online.

I have been 'testing' this book of Mug Cakes by Leslie Bilderback and can report success with a number of recipes so far. Inspiration usually starts with a craving for "a little bit of something sweet" after dinner, which leads to a quick perusal of the fridge and pantry for ingredients, then a browse of the index and voila! Dessert is ready a few minutes later.

The first recipe I tried was sour cream, apple and pecan mug cake. The other night it was plum thyme mug cake (I had lots of plums and no sage, hence the variation). Last night it was brown sugar mug cake with cinnamon and nutmeg. Gosh, this sounds like a regular occurrence ... but I swear it's all in the name of experimentation and quality assurance. ;-) Either way, I highly recommend this recipe book.

The other title I purchased is the one my friend showed me, Mug Cakes by Lene Knudsen. It's been touted as not too practical for making at the office. I'd have to agree that some of the ingredients are slightly more exotic and a few require substituting with local chocolate or sweet varieties. They also seem bigger and at more risk of overflowing in the microwave than Leslie Bilderback's recipes, which fit well in a 250 ml mug. Still, there are lots of good dessert ideas in there and they're quick and easy to make.

So, what's for dessert tonight?

Mini cocotte

I'm an average cook. I can rustle together a healthy meal reasonably quickly and it will taste fine, but cooking is not my passion. Somehow, I'm better at feeding an army than cooking for just myself or the two of us. This often sees me making a large portion of something simple and having it for two or three meals, but I've always admired cooks who can serve up a gourmet meal for one.

Enter mini cocotte, the cutest little cooking vessel ever and a Christmas present from my family in 2014. I was given a pair (purple ones, naturally) along with an accompanying recipe book. I was hesitant at first; sweet cooking and baking is my forte, but what meals can you possibly make that are this small? It turns out: almost anything!

If you like eggs for breakfast or brunch, here are four simple recipes to get you going.



I began by making coddled eggs with leftover Christmas ham, just like in the video. I added a sprinkle of cracked pepper and mixed herbs on top. Success!

Coddled eggs

Next up, a smaller version of this hearty ham casserole with more leftover Christmas ham, corn and potato. This would work with almost any combination of vegetables and meat.

Hearty ham casserole

And, of course, there's dessert. This mini apple crisp was delicious and I have also made volcano chocolate cakes.

Apple crisp

I have now started a Pinterest board of mini cocotte recipes. You can use any recipe that can be cooked in a ramekin, which I find is a helpful rule of thumb until I work out how to reduce recipes to fit into the mini cocottes. I am quickly becoming an expert at halving and quartering quantities of ingredients. For our appetites, mini cocotte cooking is perfect for breakfast or brunch, lunch and desserts, but we find them more suitable as a side dish for main meals.

Recipe book waltz

Christmas this year has netted me two new recipe books, one I had asked for and the other a nice surprise. I've thumbed through both and eyed up several tempting recipes, but am pretty sure that both books are destined for my recipe bookshelf where they will sit for months or possibly years before they next see the light of day in my kitchen.

I haven't gone crazy with recipe books in a food porn kind of way, but I really like the titles I've collected and I love to browse. I'm realistic about my cooking ability and motivation levels. If recipes call for too many steps or ingredients lists requiring quarter teaspoons of exotic things that I'd rarely buy, then I'll pass them by. Even though I have amassed a reasonable collection, particularly of baking books, I find myself rotating through a few favourite titles or recipes over and over. Perhaps this a common thing among cooks?

When an occasion calls for baking, I find myself Googling ingredients I have on hand and finding recipes that combine them. For example, we had a small party the other night and I had lots of leftover strawberries. I have a bookshelf of recipe books that could probably have put those strawberries to good use, yet I sifted through about eight recipes online and came up with this one for strawberry tarts. It worked well and I now have another new loose leaf recipe for my collection, but will I use it again? Possibly.

I've decided to spend some time during the holidays waltzing through my recipe books and marking my dance card of recipes to try with a packet of Post-It notes. Then, when divine inspiration or a special occasion presents itself, I'll have a place to start.

Apple and sultana spice cake

My 100th recipe on this blog! Let's celebrate with cake for afternoon tea.

This recipe for rustic-style apple and sultana spice cake comes from Sophie Gray's new baking book, Fill the Tins. It's easy to make and doesn't require a cake mixer. It's very versatile and can be served warm or cold either with or without cream or ice cream. Next time, I'd sprinkle cinnamon mixed with raw sugar crystals on top before baking for an extra sweet finish.

I weigh my ingredients so this is the original recipe with metric measurements included.

Apple and sultana spice cake

Ingredients

• 125 g butter, melted
• 70 g sultanas
• 210 g plain flour
• 220 g sugar
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ground allspice
• 2 cups apple, peeled and chopped (approx 2 medium apples)
• 60 g walnuts, chopped
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup milk

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line the base of a 20 cm loose-bottom or spring form tin.
2. Melt the butter, then add the sultanas so they can soften slightly. Set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices. Add the chopped apple and walnuts and toss them in the flour mixture.
4. Add the beaten egg along with the cooled butter mix and milk to the dry ingredients. Fold the mixture together to form a thick batter and pour into the prepared tin. Smooth the mixture over with a spatula, forming a slight mound in the middle.
5. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until springy and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove the baking paper and continue cooling on a rack.

Apple and sultana spice cake